MASTER OF PUPPETS
by JeffersonStarship
Summary: This is the episode "Faith" retold from the Reaper's P.O.V.


_**AUTHOR'S NOTE**_ - This is a small something I wrote for a fanfic writing competition over at the forums where the challenge was to re-write an episode of Supernatural from the evil thing's point of view. I chose to run with the episode of Faith, writing from the Reaper's P.O.V. as the reaper is my favourite Monster of The Week from the show.

_**MASTER OF PUPPETS (or FAITH - The Reaper's P.O.V.) by DeansDemonBabe**_

I am that shadow that watches over your shoulder. I am the one who passes judgement on no one. I am merely the one who helps souls on their way across the River Styx, seeing things only in shades of grey, never in black and white. Everyone is equal in my eyes - I am unfamiliar with the concepts of good or evil. I go where I please and am rendered unstoppable.

There is no explanation for anything.

There is only me.

You may call me a reaper.

I almost had the soul of the one they call Dean Winchester. I watched on the sidelines as he battled with the Rawhead, stepping in a puddle as he unleashed the power of the taser gun on said Rawhead, but the plan backfired. Dean electrocuted himself.

I was waiting on the sidelines to escort his soul to where it belonged, but his was not mine to take, at least at that moment in time. I would have to wait another month to claim that. But what was a month to me - ageless, patient, infinite?  
That was when I felt my powers bound - my body called elsewhere, my will held slave to someone else's whim - nothing that belonged to me and was rightly my own, belonged to me any more.

It felt as though my body was being guided in the opposite direction to which I wanted it to go - I witnessed myself taking the souls of those too young to be escorted to the other side - in place of those whose time had really come. I was being manipulated by outside forces and I resented the intrusion, for I was used to my own unstoppable will. I could not break the spell on me, for spell I was convinced it was, and I was left, being directed like a puppet, instead of being the master of puppets, like I was destined to be.

I saw no way out of this, until a chain of events was sparked off by a decision made by a young man called Sam Winchester, the very brother of the soul I had been waiting to take, Dean.  
I was aware of the situation, just as I am aware of all situations around the world - despite my bound state, I could still feel, I was still aware of life and death around the world. After all, that was my role on this earth. No magical spells could take that ability away from me.

I saw in my mind's eye young Sam taking his brother to a faith healer, by the name of Roy LeGrange.

I watched as Dean was chosen from the audience by LeGrange in order to be healed, and I knew it was my time to act. I was sent on my way to hunt the unfortunate soul chosen to replace that of Dean's, to die in the same manner as Dean would have done - his heart failing in the prime of young adulthood, when there was no right, no need for him to go.

I was so neutral in all matters before, I had rail against what I was forced to do. It was not right, and I am not proud of any of it. I didn't know what to do in order to free myself from that trap, that vicious circle I was running in.

Nevertheless I returned to the stage to stand behind LeGrange, as life and full health returns to Dean Winchester. This at least pleased me for there was someone who I had faith in that would help me. Dean saw me, with my mysterious smile, leaning over Roy LeGrange's shoulder, and his eyes grew wide when he saw my face, but he did not show fear, merely confusion.

I know that Dean is a powerful hunter of the supernatural and is good at what he does. This is the closest I have come to respecting a mere human.

I was not wrong.

Within time, Dean, with more than a little considerable help from his younger brother tracked down the controller of my actions, the Master to my puppet - Sue Ann LeGrange - the wife of the so called Faith Healer Roy. Everyone believed he was working miracles, when all along it was me, diverting the course of nature, and visiting death on those who did not deserve it, all because of one small woman. She had bound me when I came for her husband, whose soul I was about to take, preventing her husband from dying, and forcing me to take someone else in his place.

And now here I was, stalking Dean himself, whose soul I was to take in place of Layla Roarke's - a female with a tumor. I laid my hand upon his head, feeling the pull of his soul through the palm of my hand, passing like a conduit through me to Layla, until I felt something break.

At first I was uncertain as to what it was that had broken, until I realized Sue Ann no longer had the control over me she once had. Sam had smashed the altar, scattered the contents, broken the amulet that hung around Sue Ann's neck that bound me closer to her than I wanted. I let Dean fall away from me, turning away with one last mysterious smile at the brave hunter - before disappearing to dispatch with my former master. The process was quick and painless on my part, before I went on my mysterious and dark path once again, never again to be bound by a mere human and their twisted will.

It felt good to be the Master of Puppets once again, all because of Dean and Sam Winchester, who realized, finally, that I was not the monster of the piece after all .


End file.
